[SCC_Active_Members] Re: Obsolete media

[Al Kossow]

 > From: "Courtney, Lee" <Lee.Courtney at windriver.com>
 > Date: Thu, 17 May 2007 11:49:56 -0700
 > To: <kossow at computerhistory.org>
 > Cc: SCC at CHM <scc_active at computerhistory.org>
 > Conversation: [SCC_Active_Members] Re: Obsolete media
 > Subject: RE: [SCC_Active_Members] Re: Obsolete media
 >
 >> The real problem that I
 >> have is too much media to read, and too little time to do it myself.
 >
 > Al, the right solution is what you articulated yesterday in the SPG -
 > using volunteers to help process the Collection.
 >
 > As I mentioned in an earlier email I'd like to start a prototype effort
 > around the SDS software. First Paula and I are going to work thru Ed
 > Bryan's donation of his SDS/XDS/Honeywell work papers. After that is
 > done, lets do the SDS software.

I would love to get this, and the Burroughs B5700 tapes read as well. The
problem is 7 track media is difficult to work with. The most expedient way
to do this may be to duplicate Paul Pierce's setup. I have the same model
Pertec drive that he has, but it will require purchasing a $2500 PCI data
acquisition card, and someone with enough time and experience to be able to
duplicate his setup in Portland.

Paul's experience is that analog-level data recovery has a much higher
success rate than his previous attempts to recover data using the existing
data separators in the drives.

On a somewhat related note:

A collection of over 800 tapes from Princeton arrived this week that need to
be evaluated. First pass is they appear to be mostly 9-track IBM-related
software. The bad news is there are a lot of them that were written on 80's
Memorex media; one of the worst brands ever made for problems with sticky
shed syndrome. There also doesn't appear to be a tape index.